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Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Corporate Cup & Shamrock out...Barbados in!

First of all, congratulations to all of you who ran in these recent races...you all put up some fine performances!

I had originally planned on running these 2 races to kick off my 2011 racing campaign. When we set up our Spring break trip to Barbados, it turned out that those 2 Saturdays would be our travel days. No complaints here...

Since we were leaving early on a Saturday, I decided to do a workout on Friday before we left. I went to the track and did 12 quarters with full recovery (1 lap), certainly nothing fancy. Then Saturday morning, I just did a steady 10 miler before my shower, oatmeal and car ride to the airport. When we arrived in Barbados, I was determined to do my easy and long runs on the sidewalks. It was challenging at times because the sidewalks are so suspect. I could open up a cement mixing business...ha!

So Sunday morning I head out for my 2 hour plus long run. Can you say hot and humid? Oh boy it got tough out there. Fortunately I was running at dog pace. Anyway, I made it back to our room and proceeded to eat and drink the rest of the day and night. I absolutely love vanilla smoothies!

Monday I decided to leave a lot earlier so it wouldn't be so hot out there. I ended up running a 10 miler easy.

Tuesday, I jumped on the treadmill to do a workout because I didn't feel like I would be able to stress myself on the roads with all of the cars and the suspect sidewalks. I decided to do 10 hill repeats at 10 miles an hour with a 5 % incline (for 2 minutes) followed by a 2 minute recovery flat. 10 of those is pretty tough...try it sometime!

Wednesday I did my first medium long run ever. I ran for 2 hours and 5 minutes and called it 17 miles. Thursday was another easy 10 miler which set me up for Friday's second stress er workout of the week:

I ran a 10 mile progression run on the treadmill in 57:55. I started at 6 minute pace and it took me a long while to get somewhat controlled. Then I just started rampin' it up...pleased to be done!

Saturday morning was another easy 10 miler before a little more time on the beach before it was time to come back home (to reality)...

Barbados is a neat Island in the West Indies. It gained it's independence in 1966 when it had been previously ruled by the British. 70 % of the tourists to the island are British. It is about an 8 hour plane ride from England and about 4 hours for US. The people are generally friendly and I managed to befriend a few of the locales who invited my son and I to watch some "footie" which is a term for soccer and we took them up on it! Very coll...

Question: What Barbadian sprinter won a medal at the Olympics in the mid-90's?

5 comments:

Sounds like a great trip and fun vacation and you even got on some sound training while you were at it. Well done indeed.

I have a good friend and college teammate, Allen Ince, who ran he 400 Hurdles for Barbados in the 1988 Olympics and got to run in the same heat as Edwin Moses. I'll have to send him a FaceBook message and find out the answer to your trivia question.